|
QUESTION:Has anyone ever tried making an excavator work with a VR glove?
Notice how, with all those fancy hydraulics, todays excavators look more
and more like giant hands. I got this thought while watching one move a
steel plate over a hole in the road they were working on
ANSWER: (By excavator I mean those fancy, smaller, more dexterous bulldozers)
I think that's a neat idea! A couple first thoughts on things to
consider when implementing this:
- It will require some sort of feedback. I suppose the most "natural"
would be through the glove itself in the form of force feedback and/or
tactile feedback, but maybe other channels would work too (i.e., using
sound).
- I expect there would need to be limiting filters on the human's
and/arm movements. For example, what if a bee buzzed the human, and
the human swatted at it? Good bye pedestrians! Just having a human's
arm get tired and go down to rest could be bad too.
- I believe with the current machines, the human can let go of the
controls and leave the "arm" in space. With a glove set-up, the
temptation might be do take off the glove and put it down, which could
cause bad things to happen. Probably better would be a glove "cavity"
in the dashboard or something protruding from there, that the user can
insert their hand into. When done, the user extracts their hand,
and everything stays where it is.
- Individually articulable fingers on the scoop might be interesting,
especially when the operator's learn how to make gestures with them!
By the way, I think some companies like John Deere and Catipiller are
doing some VR stuff now, but I'm not sure what.
|
|
|
|
